"By investing vast sums of money in solving complex historical problems, expanding the private sector, and investing in technical fixes, they advance the idea that capitalism is not the cause, but the solution, to the world’s troubles. In the words of historian Mikkel Thorup, capitalist philanthropy obscures the conflict between rich and poor, asserting instead that the rich are 'the poor’s best and possibly only friend.'

..."[Howard] Buffett argues that his investments are necessary 'because no one else is interested in doing it.' But there are numerous Congolese citizens who would like to see a strengthened public sector rather than private investment in services."

On 29 December 2017 I sent below email to friends with involvement or concern over the terrible living conditions in Masiphumelele, the nearby area where domestic labourers, security guards a host of other low-paid labour and the unemployed live - all of them Black. Twenty-three years after 'freedom' our Government fails to undo apartheid and inequality!

Dear friends,

The horror of the loss of life at Grenfell Towers is not comparable in scale to losses of life in one event in Masiphumele. If, or when typhoid breaks out in Masi many children will die, as we have warned. Big and likely fires could also cause greater loss of life, and have in the past caused loss of life. The possibility of a cataclysmic event is waiting to happen in Masi.

Please read the well written article below. It appeared in The Guardian, UK. But: -

- Read Cape Town City Council when you read ‘those responsible for the horror in the dock at the Old Bailey’.

Key words (in the article) that fit our situation: budget cuts = no budget for Masi 2017 - 2022; traumatised survivors = created in Masi by every time red ant act violently when they tear down shacks; right-to-buy = read refusal by City to take over Amakhaya ngoku; section 106 = read the obligation to provide a development plan, let alone the obligation to build housing; for-profit = read the only real motivation of de Lille and company; gentrification = read Chapmans View and other new gated suburbs.

Why must we wait for loss of life before this exceedingly rich City and rich citizenry agree to do what is right? And even when catastrophe happens we cannot be sure they will act. If Zille and de Lille told me, you will all have houses in 60 or 70 years time (as they do), I’d be disaffected and hostile to the mediocre services the City provides for the poor.

The trickle down of cross-subsidy from rich to poor areas is a formula that defies the pent-up anger of those living in shacks today. What we need is a City leadership that makes exceptional and urgent demands on those privileged. This should be in the form of special taxation for a period, so the 60 year plan is dealt with over 10 years. We need extra-ordinary measures that deal with the crises. Drip-drip business-as-usual is failure to undue the apartheid legacy and pain.

The unfinished business of apartheid will catch up with us all. The rich have to cede something more than the charity (they define the amount) and rates and taxes that fail to transform Masiphumele and the rest of Cape Town.

This is my angry view for an agenda for 2018!

Yours,

Horst

Those responsible for the horror of the Grenfell Tower fire must face trial.David Lammy, MPIf the people who let this fire happen are not brought before a court, there will be no justice for victims and families

Tue 26 Dec ‘17 08.00 GMT

I will never forget the sight that met me as I emerged from Latimer Road tube station that day. A vision of hell. A smouldering, charred tower of death rising into the west London sky, surrounded by streets that were plastered with missing person signs, left by the bereft and the brokenhearted.

That week it briefly felt as though Grenfell Tower was a huge moment in our national life – coming days after a general election that barely touched upon the issues that this burning building threw into sharp relief.For a few days in June we couldn’t look away from Grenfell Tower and what it said, silently but so powerfully, about the state of our nation. This atrocity forced our collective consciousness to consider things that for too long we had been too happy to ignore – the state of social housing, the human cost of the creeping privatisation of services previously carried out by the state, the atrophy of local government in the face of budget cuts, together with rampant commercialisation and gentrification masquerading as regeneration.Then something changed. Within a couple of days the dog whistle sounded in social media, in below-the-line comment sections and in parts of the broadcast and print media. Grenfell Tower residents were illegal immigrants, unwelcome, the underclass. An atrocity should not serve as a national dividing line, but it did; and traumatised survivors had to watch as the nation retreated into tribal echo chambers.The media has traditionally done little to represent working-class people, and I have grown tired of correcting journalists who called those who lived in Grenfell “poor”. The survivors I have met include teachers, nurses and small-business owners. In truth, many journalists – as well as the leader of the council in which Grenfell Tower lies – have never lived, and could never imagine living, in a tower block or in social housing.When it comes to housing, our national psyche has cast the “social” in social housing as a dirty word, while the “market” in the housing market has come to reign supreme. In a world of right to buy, buy to let, help to buy, buying off-plan, marketing suites and section 106 (affordable housing obligations for local authorities), housing has come to be seen as a for-profit asset rather than a social good.Grenfell Tower was overseen by a local authority that seems to have forgotten how to do civic. Maybe this was the natural outcome of what David Cameron meant by “big society”, where philanthropy and charity were supposed to replace an active state. We were presented with an authority that appeared to wear its hands-off approach as a badge of honour, holding hundreds of millions of poundsin reserves while retreating from its role at the heart of the community – apart from ensuring the bins were collected and the streets were cleaned.

What happened in June revealed a nation where the social contract between the state and the individual had broken down, with the concept of a collective society eroded. Not only do our councils no longer build homes, they also outsource responsibility for their management or upkeep. Our fire services no longer ensure that dwellings are safe from the threat of fire – landlords can simply get a certificate from a private inspector.AdvertisementAs regeneration becomes gentrificationand mixed communities cease to exist, elected representatives take decisions based on how properties appear when viewed from the homes of the wealthy, not on the safety of the families who remain in social housing. An array of local and national state bodies ignored the warnings of Grenfell residents, and of fire experts who urged successive housing ministers to take action following the Lakanal House fire in 2009 in south London.As a country we take pride in our work in international development, disaster management and nation building. It is often British NGOs that are first responders on the ground in war-torn nations or after natural disasters; yet we failed to look after our own in the nation’s richest borough. There is no getting away from the fact that this is a dark chapter in our history.

What strikes me when I speak to Grenfell survivors is the lack of dignity and humanity in the way they have been treated. What was left of Grenfell Tower was ransacked – despite its status as a crime scene and the supposed police protection. It is not right that parents are sharing rooms with their teenage children and that the bereaved have no privacy, no place to call their own and no place to grieve. I have been on the government’s case about the failures to rehouse the survivors, but they don’t just need a house, they need a home.Next year the long search for justice will go on for the Grenfell survivors and the families of those who lost their lives. They have been told to place their trust in the very same state that failed them so gravely. But what does justice mean?For most people it means putting those responsible for the horror in the dock in the Old Bailey, on trial for gross negligence manslaughter. Anything short of that will be a whitewash.• David Lammy is Labour MP for Tottenham

50 years ago, (from 1960 onwards) 60,000 people were evicted from District 6, in the heart of Cape Town. It became known as apartheid's most infamous forced removal. 22 years into democracy the majority have not yet been compensated. Read more...

A picture presentation and talk I gave at the Good Hope Seminary Girl's High School in Cape Town on 30 September 2016.

Dear friends,After my visit to Japan and South Korea I wrote below article which appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper online edition on 11 April 2017. It concerns the dangerous collusion between Governments and corporations in nuclear deals. It sharpens the debate on the secret deal, in the making, between President Zuma and President Putin of Russia.

Statements, notably in social media, show how deep racial attitudes continue to be embedded in our society. This affects and concerns me. That is why we put below sign and invitation to comment outside our front gate.

Dear friends in the Southern Peninsula,I add my voice and urge you to join the march on Wednesday 30 September 2015.

Over 300 organisations have registered to participate in next week’s march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria and Parliament in Cape Town to demand a national intervention against corruption.

In Cape Town the coalition of organisations will gather at Keisergracht Street in Cape Town from 11am. Peaceful and dignified!

Civil society organisations who gathered in Braamfontein say they hope next week’s marches will be on par with those that helped to topple the apartheid government.

The marches will see organisations including Amnesty International, Corruption Watch and National Union of Metalworkers. Religious leaders and the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum has called on the public to join the Cape Town leg of the anti-corruption march to Parliament. The forum's Alan Storey says it's not only marching against political corruption but against poverty as well. Storey says that high levels of poverty breeds corruption.

I'm going. Will you be going?Horst

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSIONDAY 3 - 24 APRIL 1996CASE NO: CT/00001VICTIM: ANTON LUBOWSKIVIOLATION: ASSASSINATIONTESTIMONIES FROM: WILFRIED LUBOWSKIMS LUBOWSKI [mother]ANNALIZE LUBOWSKI [sister]DR BORAINE:Mr Lubowski I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you, and express the gratitude of the Commission for your willingness to come under circumstances which are extremely difficult for you and for your family.Thank you very much for coming. Now I understand that your wife is with you Ms Lubowski, and also your daughter. May I extend the welcome to you as well. Mr Lubowski I understand that you are the only one who will be giving actual testimony this afternoon - both of you - thank you very much in deed then who will start.Ms Lubowski will you please stand to take the oath.MS LUBOWSKI Duly sworn statesDR BORAINE:Thank you very much please be seated. Mr Lubowski I think it may be as well to swear you in now also.WILFRIED FRANZ LUBOWSKI Duly sworn statesDR BORAINE:Thank you very much in deed. I just want to say that you have been here all day and you will know that the people who come to the Commission are drawn from a very-very wide spectrum.You will know that we met in East London and that from here we will go to Gauteng and then to Kwa-Zulu Natal and then to many-many parts of South Africa. We have stressed that our doors are open to all. Some of hardly know and that’s one of the reasons why we want them to come, because nobody knows about them, others are very well known and they are just as important for us.You will be telling us a story that obviously changed your entire lives, a story of a very-very well known South African, Namibian, world citizen in may ways Anton, know to many of us sitting on this Commission and certainly known to many in the audience and in other parts of South Africa and Namibia. We want you to know that we feel for you and that we will listen very carefully to your story and if there is anything we can do in order to help, I know you will tell us.Mr Denzil Potgieter a fellow Commissioner is going to - someone whom you know is going to lead you in order only to assist you to tell the story. You tell it in your way, but he’ll be there to guide you if necessary. Thank you very much.ADV POTGIETER:Thank you Alex. Ms Lubowski prefers giving her testimony in Afrikaans and Mr Lubowski will give his testimony in English. You are very welcome here and also to your husband and to Annalize very welcome here.Madam you evidence will deal with the assassination of your son advocate Anton Lubowski, is that correct, you want to testify to that effect, please just relax you are very welcome.MS LUBOWSKI:Anton Lubowski was my only son, he was raised in the spirit of opposition politics against apartheid. His father stood as a candidate in three election in South West Africa against the National Party. Anton completed his high school training at Paul Roos in Stellenbosch and then underwent one year military training in Pretoria as a lieutenant. Then he did a BA in Law at Stellenbosch University and completed that. He completed his LLB at the University of Cape Town.Anton was a child of God and the courage which I received over the past couple of years, to carry on with life, I’ve found in the same source every single Sunday I listen to the radio church service with Anton’s Bible on my lap. I know how much solace he has left me by underlining certain important verses in the Bible. And the verse which he left with me, and underlined for today comes from Romans 8 verse 31, what can we say of these things if God is for us, who can be against us.Right from the first day that he started at Lawrence and Bone in Windhoek, a firm of attorneys he was thrown into the deep end. He had to visit SWAPO awaiting trial prisoner in prison, the gruesome torture which this man had undergone so distressed Anton that he was physically ill after that. That was the start of numerous cruel actions that he suffered at the hands of the Security Police. I, his mother, I knew how much empathy he had with his fellow human beings and I understood what it did to his psyche and his soul.He decided to go to the Bar earlier as an advocate 60% of his cases were of a political nature and he defended SWAPO supporters. One again this brought him into very close contact with unbelievable stories of torture by the Security Forces in the police. SWAPO men who just disappeared overnight without a trace, torture in police cells and detention which shocked him to his core.There was also the case of an Ovambo women who had to stand against the wall for hours and hours she had her monthly period and the blood ran down her swollen legs. These kind of things nearly broke his spirit. He became more and more outspoken and took up a strong point - point of view against the authorities and apartheid legislation.All these things of course made him a marked man. In 1984 he joined SWAPO openly and that was the start of his road to tragedy filled with unbelievable pain and suffering, not only for him but also for his wife and his children and his loved ones.In a local newspaper in Windhoek he was warned about what was waiting for him. Anton - Anton now you’ll know what hell on earth is, you’ll know what it’s like to walk down the street and to know that eyes are following you. You are now the inmate of the outer sphere of hell and particular darkness, you’re a marked man. Thereafter his life was constantly in danger, he had threatening calls frequently.His wife and children were also warned that he had only hours to life. Pamphlets depicting his head full of bullet wounds were received in the post, other pamphlets showing his head covered in this most filthy language in Afrikaans were also received. If I may show you an example [intervention]ADV POTGIETER:Do you have examples of the kind of thing you talking about of these pamphlets. And this one he also received, not only this one, but numerous others. When you finished giving your evidence I will ask you to hand in these documents as Exhibits when [intervention]MS LUBOWSKI:May I read, may I read you what it says here.ADV POTGIETER:Certainly.MS LUBOWSKI:SWAPO you’re out, you are filth, you are worst than the excrement of a snake, you piece of filth, you communist, away with you, kaffir boetie, you are going to die, you filth. You are no good, pig head, and child of a hoar.He had fewer and fewer cases to defend, he was a social outcast as if he had some kind of a contagious disease. He was openly cursed as a whitekaffir and sometimes he rather enjoyed that. One evening when he came back from Khatature where he had gone to take food to poor black people just outside Windhoek he was shot at.He immediately went to the police and showed them the evidence, his window had been shot at, but the police just ignored him, they turned their backs on him.He was thrown into prison with 23 SWAPO members because he had also protested against the unjust laws, once again he gained first hand experience of the terrible conditions in prison, no toilet facilities, squat closets in the ground. And to wash there was only a hole over this water closet and there was a stream of water jetting out onto it and of course this was the kind of conditions where diseases flourished. Mielie papthree times a day, and this was brought to them in a wheelbarrow and they were served end of Tape 14, side B … [indistinct] in solitary detention.The questions they put to him there they could of also put to him in his advocate’s rooms, he was clothed only in a pair of underpants, he had one blanket and the Bible ironically enough. They wanted to break him because he was a threat to the National Party Government in South West Africa as well as abroad because he had become known in many countries as a fighter against apartheid.He was hated for his background, his academic achievements as well as his status. With an Afrikaner mother, a German father, both from respected families and backgrounds, that they could not abide. Namibia’s independence was already afore comple Resolution 435 was a reality.SWAPO’s white boy a huge threat. The disciples of Satan the beast. As from the 1st of September 1989 started planning his assassination in Johannesburg and in Pretoria. Thousands of rands which were taxpayers money was made available and this is the hardest thing of all to swallow that we paid to have our son killed.The instruction for the assassination was given to:Staal BurgerChappie MaraisFerdi BarnardKalla BothaSlang van ZylWouter BassonDonald Acheson a professional hit man.After everything that I’ve now told you no normal person can believe that my son Anton Lubowski, could ever have become a spy for the National Party Government as national - as Magnus Malan alleged in Parliament.I am requesting the Commission to help us to take away the hindrances, so that our child’s murders can be triad in a Court of Law. The assassination was planned here in South Africa by Afrikaners and was committed in Namibia when it was still under South African jurisdiction.I conclude by explaining why I wrote the book Anton Lubowski, paradox of a man, in English. The reason for that was that because Anton was so well known abroad I wanted to show the world how low the National Party had stooped with their illegal occupation in Namibia.He lived when a political crimes were a mask for the so-called Christian country and Government to commit their atrocities. The hatred which was almost tangible because you wanted to promote justice, evoke the feeling that his death led to the lancing of this boil.I would like to use this opportunity to thank the Truth Commission from the bottom of my heart that they have given us this privilege and I would like to thank the people of Cape Town - my pastor Dr Ben Kotze, who supported me for six years. All the many Afrikaans people who did not want to carry on living as before, it doesn’t matter to which political party they belonged, thank you very much.ADV POTGIETER:We thank you madam. You have in your possession for the assistance of the Commission a file with clippings and cuttings from the various newspaper reports in Namibia especially which all relate to Anton’s case.

On 26 August 2015 Anton Lubowski, prominent anti-apartheid lawyer in Namibia, assassinated by unknown apartheid police agents nearly three decades ago, was given a final resting place at Heroes Acre, Windhoek, Namibia.

Gabrielle Lubowski writes:

Since September 2014 we have been waiting for confirmation of a date to meet with current Namibian President Hage Geingob. I strongly felt that it was my duty and my task to restore Anton's legacy.

Finally, the weekend of the 16th August we (my children Almo and Nadia and myself) met with an envoy of the President and we were invited to Heroes Day.

I was flown up to Windhoek to join the event......and finally Anton has his rightful place in the history of Namibia.

We are now at peace and feel that justice has been done. Almo and Nadia will fly up to Namibia at another date to visit Heroes Acre and connect with the SWAPO leadership.

With gratitude and happinessGabrielle

You can write to her: Gabrielle Lubowski <lubowskigabrielle@gmail.com>

SKN 27. Of Refugees, Greece and the EU, incongruence and a painting holiday

﻿OF REFUGEES AND SUFFERING, OF GREECE AND THE EU, INCONGRUENCE AND A PAINTING HOLIDAY.﻿﻿7 September 2015

Dear friends,

Christine and I joined friends in Lesvos, Greece recently, the place that's currently in the news. Our two week holiday was booked and arranged, with 12 friends, more than a year ago. At the time we thought the Greek financial issues would be resolved and we had no idea that Greece and specifically the island we went to, would become a focal point for refugee arrivals from Syria and elsewhere. When we left Cape Town we knew things would be different to what we expected from a Greek island holiday, but nothing like what expected us. We arrived the day after the 'NO' vote and the first views were of countless refugees.

Reality is very different from watching TV and reading newspaper reports. In attached Newsletter I try and capture what we saw and felt each day of our holiday. I was once a refugee myself, but what we saw in Greece bears no comparison to my experience. The raw reality is terrible. It made me read about the global refugee crises that has engulfed the world.

Refugees are a reality in South Africa also. Our treatment of them is appalling. No refugee can experience worse than the xenophobic attacks that have taken place here. If our experience in Lesvos inspired me to do anything, it is to support a better deal for refugees in our country.

The global refugee crises is changing the world. Have a look at the figures I dug up from the UNHCR. This crises will define our world for years to come.